In every health care scare there is a run to buy health care stocks because the emphasis for everyone turns to health. The issue is which company do you buy? If you buy a large giant of a company, if it can distribute millions of doses of a vaccine all governments will pay billions of dollars for it. If it does not, does the other parts still contribute to making money? The issue is the health care system makes money for operation room being used, right now it is not being used, treatment for the virus is a priority. This means hospitals while the beds are being used, they are not making as much money as they were under normal circumstances. The government is going to send money or bail them out.

Gary Christie of Trading Central used his company’s data bank for the following criteria:

using the S&P 500 index companies in the biotech and pharma industries with a $10 billion capitalization or more.

strong revenue growth for their last quarter. Looking for companies who achieved a 5% growth over last year.

a return on equity of 10% or moe

a price to sales ratio of no more than 10

upper level on the debt to capital ratio of 0.85

Company Mkt Cap P/E Div ROE Price/ Debt/ Rev Growth 1 Yr Recent

($ bil) Yld Sales Capital % Perf % Price $

Humana 48.5 18.3 0.6 24.4 0.76 0.29 15 46.9 367.17

AmerisourceBerge 17.8 27.9 1.8 21.6 0.10 0.55 5.4 16.7 86.5

Anthem 66.3 14.2 1.3 16.0 0.66 0.36 17.3 4.8 262.96

West Pharma Svcs 12.6 53.0 0.3 18.2 6.97 0.17 11.4 47.7 184.96

Merck 202 21.0 2.9 37.4 4.41 0.47 7.9 7.0 81.35

ResMed 23.3 51.4 1.0 21.6 8.38 0.38 13.1 58.2 160.92

Agilent Tech 23.3 30.9 0.9 15.5 4.53 0.27 5.7 -0.8 75.17

Teleflex 15.5 34.0 0.4 16.7 6.06 0.40 6.1 19.8 334.03

Stryker 68.2 33.2 1.2 17.0 4.64 0.44 8.8 -1.7 181.92

Zoetis 59.7 40.5 0.6 61.3 9.68 0.69 7.0 24.4 125.81

Linking to dividend paying stocks, these charts help give you names of companies that are well run but they also help you to narrow the field. What are the most important metric for you? how will you know the company is doing what you want it to, beside the price of the stock going up? Investing is about narrowing the field of options and choosing well – a old TV show was Kung Fu with David Carradine, in the opening of the show the master would say when you can take the pebble from my hand, you will be ready. How are you getting ready, what homework must you do?

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.